The other day I wrote about my amazement seeing Carole King prance around a stage at 78, and I’ve discovered another octogenarian who has been baffling my understanding of humans, age, and physics: Martha Argerich.
This video sums it up nicely:
I mean seriously, how does one’s fingers move like that?
I don’t know much about classic music, and I only got to know her because I watched a Korean drama about Brahms and someone happened to list her renditions of one of the tracks I really liked. Months later I became curious about this person playing the piano, and I wikipediaed her – apparently she’s one of the greatest pianists of all time, and I couldn’t help but ask: why?
I take back my question.
The other thing that struck me was that looking at her record covers they were of her from her 20s till now:
It is incredible to see this sort of career span and stamina.
Again, I feel lucky I am living in an age where I can access information, music and videos of a person at a click, and understand them so much more. The noise of the internet makes me forget this sometimes, but look at the array of resources we have – I can watch Argerich play Chopin when she was in her 20s!
I also like I am able to continually expand my tastes and capacity to try to listen to something I am not familiar with.
If only I can be half as alive as her now when I am 40, much less 80.